She’s known in local newspapers as 23-year-old Emily Doe, a pseudonym to protect her privacy amid an emotional court battle in which former Stanford University varsity swimmer Brock Allen Turner (video) was found guilty of her sexual assault.Rico says that's heart-breaking, but so's this Washington Post article by Michael Miller:
Prosecutors said that, in January of 2015, witnesses saw Turner sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster on campus.
The case came to a close when the judge sentenced Turner to six months in county jail and then probation, and ordered him to register as a sex offender over three sexual assault convictions: assault with the intent to commit rape, sexual penetration with a foreign object of an intoxicated person, and sexual penetration with a foreign object of an unconscious person, according to Palo Alto Online. The newspaper reported that, when handing down Turner’s sentence, the judge in the case said he understood the “devastation” the victim suffered, but he feared imprisonment would have a “severe” impact on Turner.
Then the victim stood in the packed courtroom and delivered what Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen called “the most eloquent, powerful and compelling piece of victim advocacy that I’ve seen in my twenty years as a prosecutor,” according to Palo Alto Online.
“You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today,” she read in court from her victim impact statement, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. “The damage is done, no one can undo it. And now we both have a choice. We can let this destroy us, I can remain angry and hurt, and you can be in denial, or we can face it head on, I accept the pain, you accept the punishment, and we move on.”
The twelve-page letter, which was published by Palo Alto Online and BuzzFeed News, has been released by Santa Clara County.
Public outrage over the lenient sentencing of a star Stanford swimmer convicted of sexual assault has been compounded by a controversial letter written by the athlete’s father.
Brock Turner was convicted in March of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman at a fraternity party in January 2015 at the elite university. He faced up to 14 years in prison. Prosecutors asked for six.
Instead, Turner received only six months in jail and three years of probation after a judge worried that a stiffer sentence would have a “severe impact” on the 20-year-old.
The light sentence drew harsh criticism from prosecutors and advocates and prompted widespread fury on social media.
[‘You took away my worth’: A victim’s powerful message to her Stanford rapist]
That fury intensified Sunday as critics slammed a letter written by Turner’s father as oblivious, “tone-deaf” and “impossibly offensive.”
A sexual assault victim’s powerful message to her Stanford attacker Embed
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A judge sentenced Brock Turner to 6 months in prison for sexually assaulting a woman on campus. The light sentence drew harsh criticism. His victim, who has chosen to not be named, spoke directly to him in a court statement. Here's what she said. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)
“His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve,” Dan A. Turner wrote in a letter arguing that his son should receive probation, not jail time. “That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.”
“He will never be his happy go lucky self with that easy going personality and welcoming smile,” the letter says, noting that the former Olympic hopeful is now a registered sex offender.
Former Stanford swimmer convicted of sex assault Embed
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Former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman following a party on campus. (Reuters)
In an interview with The Washington Post early Monday morning, Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen confirmed that the letter had been submitted to the court before Turner’s sentencing last week and criticized the letter for reducing a brutal sexual assault to “20 minutes of action.” He also slammed Turner and his father for refusing to own up to the crime.
“To this day, the defendant denies what he did,” Rosen said, adding that Turner “preyed upon” his victim and displayed violence.
Brock Turner’s attorney did not return The Post’s request for comment regarding Dan Turner’s letter.
The controversial letter emerged three days after prosecutors released another letter, this one written by the victim, who has not been named.
The two letters stand in stark contrast. While Dan Turner’s has been described as myopic, the victim’s has been called powerful and moving.
The victim’s letter begins by bluntly addressing her attacker.
“You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me, and that’s why we’re here today,” she read in court. She then described how she decided to attend a party so she could spend time with her younger sister.
[The Swedish Stanford students who rescued an unconscious sexual assault victim speak out]
“I made silly faces, let my guard down, and drank liquor too fast not factoring in that my tolerance had significantly lowered since college,” she said. “The next thing I remember I was in a gurney in a hallway. I had dried blood and bandages on the backs of my hands and elbow. I thought maybe I had fallen and was in an admin office on campus. I was very calm and wondering where my sister was. A deputy explained I had been assaulted. I still remained calm, assured he was speaking to the wrong person. I knew no one at this party. When I was finally allowed to use the restroom, I pulled down the hospital pants they had given me, went to pull down my underwear, and felt nothing.”
[A shocking number of college men surveyed admit coercing a partner into sex]
She described in painful detail how the hospital staff documented her assault with probes and swabs, “shots, pills, had a nikon pointed right into my spread legs. …
“I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else.”
She described Turner as a predator picking off “the wounded antelope of the herd, completely alone and vulnerable, physically unable to fend for myself. …”
She added: “Sometimes I think, if I hadn’t gone, then this never would’ve happened. But then I realized, it would have happened, just to somebody else. You were about to enter four years of access to drunk girls and parties, and if this is the foot you started off on, then it is right you did not continue.”
“You do not get to shrug your shoulders and be confused anymore,” she said of his conviction. “You have been convicted of violating me with malicious intent, and all you can admit to is consuming alcohol. Do not talk about the sad way your life was upturned because alcohol made you do bad things.”
And yet, that is essentially the tone of Turner’s father’s letter.
Dan Turner’s letter begins with brisk reference to the sexual assault:
“First of all, let me say that Brock is absolutely devastated by the events of 17 and 18 January 2015,” it says. “He would do anything to turn back the hands of time and have that night to do over again. In many one-on-one conversations with Brock since that day, I can tell you that he is truly sorry for what occurred that night, and for all the pain and suffering that it has caused for all those involved and impacted by that night. He has expressed true remorse for his actions on that night.”
Rosen said, however, that Brock Turner had never accepted responsibility for the assault. Had he done so, prosecutors probably would have agreed to a sentence of less than six years.
Dan Turner’s letter then launches into a description of his son’s “easygoing personality” and the “inner strength” that made him such a good swimmer. Dan Turner said he and his son were “totally in awe” of Stanford’s campus, and noted with pride the school’s four percent acceptance rate. Turner then described his son not as a sexual predator, but as a victim.
“He excelled in school that quarter earning the top GPA for all freshmen on the swim team,” the father wrote in his letter. “What we didn’t realize was the extent to which Brock was struggling being so far from home. When Brock was home during the Christmas break, he broke down and told us how much he was struggling to fit in socially. In hindsight, it’s clear that Brock was desperately trying to fit in at Stanford and fell into the culture of alcohol consumption and partying,” Dan Turner concluded. “This culture was modeled by many of the upperclassmen on the swim team and played a role in the events of 17 and 18 January 2015.”
During the trial, prosecutors had argued that Brock Turner was part of a bigger problem.
“He may not look like a rapist, but he is the face of campus sexual assault,” Deputy District Attorney Alaleh Kianerci told the jury, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
In his letter to the judge, however, Dan Turner appeared to be flipping this script, using the pervasiveness of the problem as a shield to hide his son’s personal responsibility.
The Internet was not having it:It's the utter lack of self awareness and context that makes Brock Turner's dad's statement so chilling. Purest dumb dad privilege
I understand that this father's pain must be excruciating and I sympathize. But this statement is itself an outrage.
Prompting particular social media outrage was the way Dan Turner portrayed his son’s suffering: “His every waking minute is consumed with worry, anxiety, fear, and depression,” the father wrote. “You can see this in his face, the way he walks, his weakened voice, his lack of appetite. Brock always enjoyed certain types of food and is a very good cook himself. I was always excited to buy him a big ribeye steak to grill or to get his favorite steak for him. Now he barely consumes any food, and eats only to exist.”Rico says he fails to understand how we're supposed to have any sympathy for this dickhead... (And the judge 'feared imprisonment would have a “severe” impact on Turner'? Isn't it supposed to?) Rico says his father, bless him, would have had a very different reaction if Rico had ever been accused of rape; probably offering to castrate Rico himself...
Brock Turner's dad is sad he only got "twenty minutes of action" and doesn't even like eating steaks any more.
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